The New York Times reports in a front-page story Feb. 23 that the Justice Department has opened an internal ethics investigation into the notorious August 2002 Bybee Memo that gave the imprimatur of legality to the Administration's use of "waterboarding" and other forms of torture. Leave it to the far-left World Socialist Web Site (Feb. 21) to save from the Orwellian memory hole a new defense of torture's "legality" by Antonin Scalia:

We've noted that Zbigniew Brzezinski is one of the primary exponents of the policy-elite backlash against the neocons, and his emergence as an adviser for Barack Obama says much about the coalition that is coming together behind the Obamarama. The original ideological whiz-kid of the (yes, really) Trilateral Commission and Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbiggy represents the "pragmatist" wing of the ruling elites. Rival Hillary Clinton has also got "pragmatists" in her camp, and Obama is also attempting to woo the neocons. But the basic division seems pretty clear. From "Behind Clinton and Obama" by Stephen Zunes in Foreign Policy in Focus, Feb. 4 (emphasis added):

We've noted ourselves that Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate that talks a good line on the Iraq war. But it is really disturbing to see anti-war folks line up behind him uncritically. Nico Pitney notes the phenomenon—without comment—on Huffington Post. Why, but why, is word not getting around of his sinister ultra-right connections? While too many "radicals" are taking his noxious bait, leave it to the liberals at The New Republic to call the rascal out. Their James Kirchick last month wrote a profile appropriately entitled "Angry White Man," in which he perused back issues of Paul's monthly newsletter, published under various names—Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report—since 1978, two years after he was first elected to Congress. Kirchick presents selections of ugly racist garbage that have appeared in its pages over the years. Excerpts:

The New York Times reports Feb. 9 that military prosecutors are in the final phases of preparing a "sweeping" case against suspected conspirators in the 9-11 plot. The charges, to be filed in the military commission system at Guantánamo Bay, are said to involve six detainees at the camp, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, known as "KSM." However, KSM was subject to waterboarding while in CIA custody, the agency's director Gen. Michael V. Hayden confirmed this week—throwing into question his supposed confession that "I was responsible for the 9-11 operation, from A to Z."

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith signed an order Feb. 7 for the extradition of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical cleric imprisoned in the UK who is wanted by federal prosecutors in New York. Al-Masri, the former imam of north London's Finsbury Park Mosque, has 14 days to lodge an appeal to the High Court against extradition and may also appeal to the House of Lords or the European Court. Al-Masri, who is blind in one eye and sometimes wears a hook in place of one of his missing hands, is currently serving a seven year sentence at the high-security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London. He denies US claims that he tried to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and aided a 1998 hostage-taking raid in Yemen. (Bloomberg, Feb. 8)

A new "manifesto" from five senior Western military commanders finds: "The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible. The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction." The document is likely to be discussed at the April NATO summit in Bucharest. The authors are Gen. John Shalikashvili, ex-NATO commander and ex-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff; Germany's Gen. Klaus Naumann; the Netherlands' Gen. Henk van den Breemen; Admiral Jacques Lanxade of France; and Lord Inge of the UK. The document is said to include Lord Inge's recommendation: "To tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence." (The Telegraph, Jan. 24; The Guardian, Jan. 22)

Activists from the US-based groups CodePink and Juventud Bolivariana launched a "Most Wanted" campaign against Cuban-born former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "asset" Luis Posada Carriles in Miami on Jan. 12, demanding that the US government designate him a terrorist and comply with a Venezuelan request for his extradition. Since 2005 Venezuela has been seeking to bring Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, to trial in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in which 73 people died. Posada is under a deportation order in the US, but since the US refused to send him either to Cuba or to Venezuela, he was conditionally released from US detention on April 19, 2006. He is now living in Miami.

Philip Agee, a US citizen and former agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), died in Havana, Cuba on Jan. 7 at age 72, according to US news reports. Louis Wolf, a friend and collaborator, said the cause of death was peritonitis. Agee had been living with his wife, Giselle Roberge Agee, in Hamburg, Germany, but the couple maintained an apartment in Havana and visited frequently. Since 2000 Agee had been running Cuba Linda,
an online agency arranging visits to Cuba for US residents. (The website reported that Agee died on Jan. 8.)